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Hay fields, vegetable gardens, and slot machines: There are several milestones that mark the timeline of tiny Garden City. This four mile burg, surrounded by much larger cities like Boise, has had a stop-and-start history.
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The early history of Garden City is hard to come by. We do know the land caught the eye of the U.S. Army in 1863; Idaho historian Susan Stacy says that’s when soldiers came to the Treasure Valley to build Fort Boise. And with the Army came hungry horses.
Liberty Bell machines, or something similar, had reached Boise in May 1894, when the Statesman reported, “The officers are waging war on the nickel-in-the-slot gambling machines.” New laws banning.
“There was this big island in the Boise River and it was called Government Island because the Army assigned that land, 600 or 700 acres, to growing hay for the horses the Army had with it,” Stacy says.
The channel of the Boise River was different back then, and Government Island included the area where Garden City sits today. Over time, the government had less use for horses, and no longer needed a hay reserve. Stacy says in 1884, the Army started selling off Government Island.
Around this time, a man named Tom Davis came to Boise to mine gold in the Boise Basin. Stacy says he quickly branched out, buying up land, planting apple trees and vegetables, and selling them to residents. He also got in the cattle business in the 1880’s. Like the Army, he needed a place to grow hay, so in 1888 Davis got interested in Government Island.
“So he started assembling that land, he started buying parcel by parcel by parcel,” says Stacy. “And by 1890, he had assembled about 650 acres, which is the majority of what we now know as Garden City.”
Davis set up the Government Island Ranch and started growing hay. Stacy says Davis was not only an entrepreneur, but he had friends who happened to be Chinese. This was during a time when the Chinese were not treated well by most whites.
“I don’t think he shared the denigration or the prejudice,' Stacy says. 'I think he admired their enterprise and admired their work and their results.'
Many of the Chinese had been drawn to the area's gold mines in the 1860’s. The immigrants found little gold so some turned instead to farming. Davis leased some of his land to Chinese gardeners.
“That’s where the reputation of the Chinese Gardens in Garden City began because they were enterprising their leased parcels,” Stacy says.
Davis died in 1908 and his children took over the estate. They initially kept the ranch and the arrangement with Chinese farmers continued. Idaho historian Arthur Hart says Chinese gardeners made a good living in the area.
But over time, the ranch was sold off and the Chinese gardeners began to disappear. But Hart says they left an indelible stamp on Garden City.
“So when they named their streets, Chinden Boulevard is a contraction of Chinese Garden.”
The next notable chapter in Garden City's history came in 1947. The Idaho Legislature passed a law allowing “coin operated amusement devices” - otherwise known as slot machines.
“The legislature in its wisdom, decided to allow local option on gambling,” Hart explains.
Any city or incorporated village could get a license from the state and start gambling. Boise voted against slots. But Hart says some saw an opportunity in the land just west of Boise.
“Some really smart guys decided ‘O.K., we’ll start our own town and then you and me and Charlie are going to vote in local option and we’re going to go for gambling.’ So they did,” says Hart.
And with that, Garden City was born in 1949. The town quickly became a mecca for gamblers.
Hart remembers driving to Garden City with friends.
“Not to gamble, but to take advantage of the strawberry shortcake (for) five cents, stuff like that,” Hart remembers. “They were giving it away to get people in the door.”
Garden City began to thrive. The Circle M, Hi Ho Club and others like them sat right next door to much bigger Boise, drawing customers who couldn’t find slots just a few miles away in the capital city.
Garden City government got a cut of the profits from slots and put them to good use. An August 1951 article in Life Magazine showed that soon there was a $10,000 park and playground, a new water system, city hall, and a police force - all paid for by gambling.
But Hart says the honeymoon ended in 1953.
“Somebody noticed the constitution and that the Legislature had no power to go against the constitution without amending the constitution, which they didn’t. At that time, gambling was still illegal.”
There were those in Idaho who considered slot machines immoral. That lead to the lawsuit. It went all the way to the Idaho Supreme Court. The Court ruled that slot machines were lotteries and lotteries were illegal under the Idaho Constitution, along with being ‘a well-recognized evil and mischief.’
Any building where gambling took place was declared ‘a moral nuisance’ and had to be closed down. Garden City would have to reinvent itself or risk going out of business.
The city responded by becoming more business friendly. City leaders relaxed building codes, leading to a mish-mash of homes and businesses. The city welcomed all types of business, even the less desirable ones. This included junkyards, slaughterhouses, nightclubs and adult bookstores. It all lead to Garden City earning the nickname, ‘Saturday Night Town.’
“They thought we had a prostitute behind every bush,' says longtime resident Donna 'D.J.' Conn. 'They called us, and I won’t say this again, but they called us Garbage City.”
Conn has lived in the city since 1956. She worked for the local newspaper, got into politics, and is a champion of the community. Her family was originally attracted by the cheap land, and relaxed building codes.
“You could buy a 50-by-150-ft. lot for $100 down, it cost $1000,' Conn says. 'And you could pay $10 a month if you wanted to.'
She and her husband bought land and started raising kids. Her daughter, Patricia, grew up in Garden City in the 1960’s. Patricia says the city had a rough and ready reputation during this period.
“Nothing was regulated and people liked that,' Patricia says. 'Here you could come on down with your chickens and your horses and your pigs and whatever. You could get a tarpaper house going. Slowly Garden City got out of that.'
The 1970s were a decade of mobile home parks. Houses from the 40’s were torn down to make way for mobile homes. Families moved in and decided to stay. Patricia says priorities changed, and over time, the city added more regulations.
“Garden City grew up very slowly, and sometimes with a lot of kicking and cussing,' she says. 'But we grew up the way we wanted to and it was because people got involved in their government.'
Her mother and father were pioneers in city government, serving on the city council and planning and zoning commission.
By the 80’s, Garden City was sprucing up. Over the last 25 years, the city has made an effort to develop new housing, especially along the Boise River. The city also kept close ties to local businesses, encouraging them to grow.
Donna Conn says there are still growing pains, but more people are taking pride in Garden City.
“It’s a good place and people are coming in and we’re enjoying the town,” Donna Conn says.
Find Samantha Wright on Twitter @samwrightradio
Copyright 2015 Boise State Public Radio
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- Casino Gambling: Not Legal
- Tribal Gambling: Legal
- Poker: Not Legal
- Horse Racing Betting: Legal
- Dog Racing Betting: Legal
- Lottery: Legal(State-Owned)
- Daily Fantasy Sports: Not Legal
- Charitable Gaming: Legal(Only in approved formats)
- Social Gambling: Not Legal
- Online Gambling: Not Specified(Players can use unregulated sites without fear of penalty)
The information in the box below provides a comprehensive overview of Idaho’s complex gambling laws.
Despite its placement in the northern reaches of the U.S., Idaho’s gambling laws are more closely aligned with those of the “Wild West.”
That is to say, gambling is largely outlawed there today, despite Idaho’s longstanding history as a territory friendly to card sharps and players traveling the frontier. Even so, a slow but steady easing of those strict laws has seen Idaho gradually step into the 20th century – if not the 21st.
Residents and visitors in Idaho can purchase lottery tickets at the local convenience store, place pari-mutuel wagers on horse races, and even head to a tribal casino for some bingo. These tribal casinos even spread slot-machine styled video gaming terminals – much to the consternation of a few hard-line lawmakers – giving Idahoans a full complement of gambling options to choose from.
With that said, traditional casino table games like blackjack, baccarat, roulette, and craps are all banned by state law, so you won’t be doubling down or hitting a hard eight here anytime soon.
Idaho is also one of the only states to expressly prohibit poker, and predictably, online gambling options are nonexistent outside of the usual unregulated channels.
Overall, the status of Idaho’s gambling law is akin to a patchwork quilt, with new sections being stitched on, or removed altogether, as the years go by. While not a gambling-friendly locale by any means, Idaho’s previous resistance to all forms of action has waned recently, moving the state closer to the center in that regard.
- Age Requirements: 18 (for all types)
- Approximate Annual Gambling Revenue: N/A
- Approximate Annual Gambling Taxes: N/A
- Number of Commercial Casinos: 0
- Number of Racinos: 8
- Number of Tribal Casinos: 7
- Casino Regulatory Body: State Legislature
- Racing Regulatory Body: Idaho Racing Commission
- Lottery National Rankings: N/A
After becoming the 43rd state admitted to the Union in 1890, its original state Constitution made Idaho’s gambling quite clear:
“The legislature shall not authorize any lottery or gift enterprise under any pretense or for any purpose whatever.”
That short and stern passage left little room for legal interpretation, but by the 1930s slot machines had made their way to the outskirts of locales like Garden City, Idaho Falls, and Pocatello. The fact that these machines were neither “lottery” nor “gift enterprise” put them in the proverbial grey-zone, legally speaking, and for nearly two decades Idahoans could take their shot at the one-armed bandits.
In 1947, a state statute was passed to expressly legalize slot machines, and for a few years, Idaho was home to a thriving industry of saloons and slot parlors.
By 1953, however, slot machines were declared to be unconstitutional by the Idaho Supreme Court, under the provisions of section 18-3804 of the Idaho Code. Slot machine owners were hounded down, their equipment destroyed by burning or, if they were fortunate, sold off to casino interests in Nevada.
In 1963 pari-mutuel horse racing was authorized by section 54-2501, which created the Idaho State Racing Commission. The state’s first Horse Racing Act had been approved by the legislature six years earlier, but it was shot down via veto from the Governor. The 1963 passage was the first legislative override of a Governor’s veto in over 20 years.
The ponies have been in action ever since and today Idaho is home to eight racetrack facilities.
In November of 1988, voters approved a bill authorizing the creation of the Idaho Lottery, which officially launched in July of the following year. As a member of the Multi-State Lottery Association, the Idaho Lottery offers popular nationwide games like Powerball, Mega Millions, and Lucky for Life, alongside several regional variants like Bingo and Weekly Grand.
In total, 50 percent of the program’s net ticket take is distributed to Idaho’s public school systems, while the rest goes to the state’s Permanent Building Fund to support university and college infrastructure. To date, the Idaho Lottery’s official website lists more than $785 million as being “returned to Idaho” since 1989.
Idaho’s primary mode of gambling is the lottery program, which sells tickets, scratch cards (called “pull tabs” there), and other products at convenience stores, gas stations, bowling alleys, and a variety of other locations throughout the state.
The same year Idaho voters approved a state lottery saw the Congress in Washington D.C. pass the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) of 1988. This sweeping reform to the nation’s gambling laws permitted any federally recognized tribal organization to forge gaming compacts with the states in which their lands are physically located.
Several tribes, including the Coeur d’Alene, the Kootenai, and the Nez Perce, entered into negotiations with Idaho’s state government in 1992, seeking to construct casino facilities where Class III gaming would be held.
Under IGRA, Class I and II games were defined as charity drawings and raffles, bingo, pull tabs, and other “social” forms of gambling. The act categorized casino-style games, such as blackjack, craps, and roulette, as Class III offerings.
Recognizing that IGRA held the potential to turn Idaho into thriving casino gambling market, one which would stand in opposition to long-held state laws, lawmakers went to work in blocking the tribe’s access to Class III games. The state constitution was amended in 1992, under Idaho Const. Art. III § 20(1)-(3), to limit Idaho’s legal gambling options to the state lottery program, pari-mutuel racing, and bingo / raffle games for charitable purposes.
Crucially, this amendment included the following language explicitly banning the casino games which comprise the Class III gaming category:
“No activities permitted by subsection (1) shall employ any form of casino gambling including, but not limited to, blackjack, craps, roulette, poker, baccarat, keno and slot machines, or employ any electronic or electromechanical imitation or simulation of any form of casino gambling.”
The Coeur d’Alene Casino and Hotel opened in 1993, offering a simple bingo hall to comply with the amendment. Other tribal casinos followed throughout the state, proving to be quite popular despite the lack of Class III games.
By 2002, however, the demand for conventional casino-style gaming had grown to the point that Initiative 1, the Idaho State-Tribal Gambling Compact Initiative, was placed on the ballot. If approved by voters, the bill would amend Idaho state law to allow tribal casinos to spread video gaming machines, which were defined as follows:
“Gaming machines used by Indian tribes which are not activated by a handle or lever, do not dispense coins, currency, tokens or chips, and which perform only certain defined functions, and defining such machines as neither slot machines nor imitations or simulations of any form of casino gaming.”
The ballot initiative was a compromise of sorts, allowing tribes in Idaho – and gamblers as well – to participate in gaming that closely resembled slot machines, while not actually breaching the law. Voters overwhelmingly supported the measure, and it passed with 57.8 percent of the vote, paving the way for a new era of tribal gaming in Idaho.
Today, despite a growing movement to rescind the 2002 law, tribal casinos in Idaho is home to thousands of video gaming machines that look and feel just like slots.
In 2011, the horse racing laws were amended to allow simulcasting of races at locations other than the actual race venue, expanding Idaho’s legal race betting industry through the introduction of eight such licenses.
Punters are free to bet on live races or historical races per the 2013 voter-approved referendum HB-220.
In 2013, lawmakers also approved highly controversial “instant racing” machines, which offer automated betting on race-like wagers using equipment and layouts that closely resemble slot machines. Prior races were recorded and presented to players with no identifying information, with the experience accompanied by bells, whistles, lights, and other accouterments common to slot game play.
The instant racing machine law was quickly repealed just two years later, with legislators claiming they had been “duped” by industry lobbyists into legalizing a loophole to the state’s slot machine ban.
In 2017, the Idaho racing industry launched a last-ditch effort to overturn the 2015 repeal, but little progress has been made on that front as of late April.
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Like so many other states, Idaho suffers from a distinct problem when it comes to its online gambling laws. Namely, there aren’t any on the books.
Most of the foundational laws underpinning Idaho’s gambling industry – the 1890 constitution, the 1988 lottery act, and 1992’s constitutional amendment banning Class III gaming – were written well before the concept of online casinos or poker rooms were ever envisioned.
Complicating matters further is the federal law known as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006, which prohibits a business from engaging in transactions related to online gambling. Before the UIGEA was passed, online casinos and poker rooms operated in all 50 states, serving customers as unregulated entities. After 2006, most of the major sites fled the US market, and “Black Friday” in 2011 effectively shuttered the online poker industry in America.
And while a few progressively-minded state governments (Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware) have kept pace with technological advancement by regulating legal online gambling industries, progressive policy has never really been Idaho’s calling card.
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Today, the state has no laws specifically addressing online casinos or poker rooms (see the DFS section later on for that segment of the online gambling market). As such, many resources found online will tell readers that the lack of legal language effectively puts Idahoans in legal limbo, allowing them to access unregulated sites at their leisure – and risk.
And sure enough, somebody sitting on their computer in Boise right now can easily find a few US-facing online casinos or poker rooms willing to let them play for real money. That’s true in every state – the three iGaming-approved jurisdictions mentioned above aside – so Idaho’s online gambling legality debate isn’t all that unusual.
Unfortunately, a provision found within Art. III § 20(1)-(3) of the Idaho constitution, which was amended in 1992, includes the following passage (emphasis added):
“No activities permitted by subsection (1) shall employ any form of casino gambling including, but not limited to, blackjack, craps, roulette, poker, baccarat, keno and slot machines, or employ any electronic or electromechanical imitation or simulation of any form of casino gambling.”
This language obviously doesn’t refer to the internet as we know it today, given the era in which it was written. Even so, many legal experts who specialize in iGaming issues believe that online gambling could very well be interpreted as “electronic or electromechanical imitation or simulation” of casino games.
And unlike most states which don’t adequately address online gambling, Idaho actually makes playing a banned game a misdemeanor under the state penal code. That means an online blackjack fan in Idaho could, theoretically, be charged with a crime for doubling down via their laptop.
Of course, no such cases have been recorded, and chances are good that they never will be. Unless state lawmakers choose to explicitly ban online gambling, the current “grey zone” status quo will remain in place, leaving players free to make their own choices from the barebones selection of US-facing operators.
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